HHS Plans To Divert Health Program Funding To House Detained Children

There are currently a record number of unaccompanied migrant children in U.S. custody.

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The Trump administration is taking over $260 million from various health programs to help house a record number of detained migrant children.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services says there are currently over 13,000 children in U.S. custody. That's more than 5 times as many as there were in May of last year.

The mass amount of detained children is due in part, to kids being held in detention centers rather than being released to sponsors and family members in the U.S.

HHS will reallocate funds from several places to help fund the Unaccompanied Alien Children program, including the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the children's Head Start program, multiple HIV/AIDS programs and the National Institutes of Health.

HHS has regularly had to reallocate funding for the program in the past. But, Democratic lawmakers say the need for funding has increased under Trump administration, due to its zero-tolerance policy.